As a great good friend once sagely pointed out, people are portable. And so we spent today on planes rather than in the kitchen, arriving just in time for Shabbos dinner and a grand celebration ushering in 2011.
As if to review all the tastes of the year, or perhaps to sample the coming year, it was a night of nosh. The pre-supper spread was perfect for visiting - chips, crackers, crudite, dips sweet and savory, hummus, olives, nuts, and grapes. Plenty to nibbles without requiring a pause in conversation.
The blessing were said with the help of multiple challah - plain, pumpkin, and chocolate chip.
Supper began with a lovely lentil soup, piquant with balsamic. As the bowls were cleared, all 16 of us filed into the kitchen to serve ourselves from a bountiful buffet. Most dishes were served hot: curried brussel sprouts, cous cous with spicy vegetables, butternut squash with apricot puree, and roasted yams. The morrocan carrots, bean and egg salad, and potato and olive salad were served cool, either at room temperature or chilled. Once seated, conversation ebbed and flowed as attention was diverted to our plates.
Definitely a night to pace oneself, I was pleased to have saved room for a taste of desert - almost literally a bite of each. The blood orage salad with cured black olives, the watemelon and mint salad, the vegan rosewater cake, the pistachio rice pudding, and even the mango slices, all whispered of travels to new and exciting lands. For an accompanying after-dinner drink, it felt only right to choose chai tea.
A meal this grand requires marvelous company; and the gathering of friends old and newly met perfectly matched the table offerings - no two the same, plenty to sample, and everyone a delight in their own way. May the new year live up to tonight's auspicious beginning!
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